Szakats’ embroidered canvasses reflect a harmony with the natural world, not just in subject of flora and fauna, where people are notably absent, but with our perception of it. We see moments in motion, not artificial stills, in the arresting effect of the meticulously brushed mohair material. Here, the static art object is infused and animated with pulsating moving colour, drawing us into a realm where colour frays, melts, and merges, becoming almost liquid and escaping the confinement of line. It invites us to meditate on the rigid distinctions we oft make between ourselves and our environment.

In this work, the juxtaposition of means and materials matters; the AI-generated compositions made in mili moments are measured against the time-consuming efforts of traditional hand-made mohair embroidered craft. We are compelled to consider this contrast, our relationship to art, its conceptualisation as it changes and responds to new technology, and how we fuse and accommodate the modern with the traditional.

Szakats’ deft and deliberate blending of these seemingly disparate elements not only navigates the divide but draws them together, at once illuminating a new avenue of artistic expression and reconciling it with artistic heritage. Mark Cunial

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German-based photographer Jan Lenhardt often seeks nature as the subject of his work. In this piece, we’re again plunged into the depths of the forest, enveloped in its foliage, shrouded in a light mist hanging under the canopy, and concealed in another realm.

In this composition, a diffusely lit path beckons as darkened trunks bolt and twist from the ground like ribbons of moss-covered wood. Sheathed in the forest’s quiet embrace, we feel its protection from the world beyond its limits. We feel invited to be lost in its disorienting heart, to lose ourselves willingly, to shed notions of time and simply surrender to its grandeur, marvel at its harmony and feel awe for a creation we take no part in perpetuating.

The photographer strives to remind us of this instinctive affinity with nature, an innate bond to a larger sphere beyond our everyday world.

Print available exclusively here: Also Into the Forest I

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‘Woman Smoking at The Window’ by UK photographer Diana Sosnowska is a carefully staged photographic self-portrait taken in the artist’s former apartment in Edinburgh, Scotland, on the eve of the pandemic’s spread throughout the UK in 2020.

Inspired by midcentury fashion and aesthetics, the photographer references the paintings of Edward Hopper and pays tribute to his 1961 work ‘A Woman in the Sun’. Like Hopper’s piece, the central figure gazes outside the frame while gently illuminated by the muted light of the otherwise bleak grey horizons, both literal and metaphoric.

This dull but yellow light casts an ineffable aura around the subject, only compounded by her averted posture. The melancholy mood which permeates the composition is further emphasised by a restrained palette of soft yet nostalgic tones. The viewer is placed in the middle ground, occupying the void between artist and subject, a voyeuristic role assigned to us by the photographer and cued by her oft symbolic use of windows. Sosnowska invites the viewer to collect her carefully staged details and weave them together to form a narrative. Available to purchase online here

The characters UK photographer Diana Sosnowska embodies in her photographic self-portraits aren’t randomly pulled from the ether. Her heroines are meticulously constructed from disparate sources.

They can be infused with the pathos of one of Euripedes’ heroines or drawn from an episode of the Twilight Zone, but always fabricated in a midcentury aesthetic from whence she draws so much inspiration.

Staged in a lake-side cottage in Florida, ‘At the table’ consciously references artist Edward Hopper’s 1914 painting ‘Soir Bleu’. Similarly to Hoper’s piece, ‘At the Table’ has a central theme of melancholic detachment represented in the central figure’s aversion to the viewer’s glare. We see Sosnowska using her familiar stylistic trope of a window in the frame to highlight the viewer’s voyeurism, a subtle reminder that we’re looking in but are also detached and removed from the subject. By placing this disconnect between us and the subject, the photographer creates the space for the viewer to invent their own narrative.

Available to purchase exclusively online here.

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With smart design, basic local craft skills and a flexible experimental attitude, even the most ordinary warehouse-like space can become an appealing selling environment.

This was recently proven in the Yuntai Ice Chrysanthemum Industry Park in Houyanmen Village in Huanfeng Town, where Beijing-based LUO Studio www.luostudio.cn transformed a hurriedly built steel-frame warehouse into a locally relevant, charming  display space by creating a delicate-looking wooden sub-structure inside the bland hall.

The purpose of this specific building is to function as a display area and showroom for the region’s famous Ice Chrysanthemum products that have a multitude of medicinal and cosmetic uses. The selling channels of these products from this space include hosted tour groups, franchisee marketing and livestreaming. It was also becoming clear that because of social media and online channels, the physical selling and display environment have become crucially important.

In addition, the pandemic has interrupted the influx of tour groups and the ice chrysanthemum plantations in the village have suffered severe production decrease because of recent floods. All this required the space not only to help boost sales but also do it with minimum costs.

Designers and construction instructors Luo Yujie, Wang Beilei, Huang Shangwan, Zhang Chen of LUO Studio worked with local people to create the 602 square-metre (6,480 sq.ft) exhibition space with all this in mind. Local affordable materials, and uncomplicated techniques that did not require special equipment or specialised skills, were the answer. LUO Studio chose thin wooden panels with a high lumber recovery rate manufactured by a local timber factory as main construction material. The panels can be assembled by hand and easily relocated and reused.

Onsite experimentation helped the designers and local workers to arrive at the best solutions especially in terms of bending the wood to an optimal, safe shape. The result is a delicate and organic-looking display area that is thoroughly local, and cleverly disguises the unseemly industrial hall.

Luo Yujie, founder of LUO Studio, is known for his creative and bold design solutions using reclaimed materials, especially wood. His award-winning project include the Longfu Life Experience Center and the Luontuwan Pergola. He often strives to counter the quick-and-cheap construction characteristics of governmental bodies with the smart use of local materials and craft skills, and with the reuse and recyclability of materials.

Yuntai Mountain is located in the Yuntai Geo Park, a popular tourist attraction with its impressive rugged nature including Yuntai Waterfall which at 314 metres (1,030 ft) said to be the tallest in China. Tuija Seipell

Images: Weiqi Jin

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‘Casa La Tigre’ is the latest instalment by The Cool Hunter’s favourite digital artist Massimo Colonna. In this newest work, a continuation on the theme of that penultimate symbol of wealth and status, the luxury pool, Colonna has created an Escher-esque tropical fantasy replete with stairs ascending and descending to everywhere, and nowhere.

The post Casa Le Tigre Print – Massimo Colonna appeared first on The Cool Hunter Journal.

The architectural concept of ‘Brutalism’ has been making somewhat of a comeback in recent times as interest in this structural style and the ideology that underpinned it increases.

Its dramatic fall from fashionable grace from the early 80’s on, however, led it to become the most reviled structural aesthetic in any urban landscape with few lamenting its demolition and demise.

The word ‘Brutalist’ itself interestingly does not derive from its forbidding appearance but rather from the words ‘Béton brut’‘ meaning ‘raw concrete’, and its rise in 1950s post-war Europe stems from the most unimpeachably high-minded principles of social utopianism and as such was the style employed to construct shared institutions like libraries, government buildings, theatres, schools, and affordable housing projects.

It epitomised a forward-looking confidence in the future and in some ways was the logical conclusion of the modernist ideal which sought to eliminate unnecessary adornment and celebrate the materials of construction themselves; concrete, steel, and glass. But the style fell from favour for several reasons, its austere nature, and its association with totalitarianism, with crime, social deprivation and urban decay and finally because often they simply didn’t age well with crumbling buildings becoming discoloured and damaged. 

In this series, digital artist Massimo Colonna (Italy) revisits the pool motif from his earlier works and pays homage to the principles of this movement and unabashedly celebrates concrete for its aesthetic value. The austerity of the cool gray concrete in these works is tempered by the form of his construction, smoothed edges, and the considered proportions and texture applied to the surfaces. The artificial here is perfectly balanced by the presence of water, of sky and greenery and creates something inviting, a space or an ideal we want to exist in as we learn to appreciate this movement anew and the lofty principles it represents.   

PRINTS AVAILABLE HERE

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Chicago-based Luftwerk is an artistic collaboration of Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero founded in 2007. The duo explores light, colour and sound in immersive temporary installations that are often based on the topography and history of the site.

Earlier this year, they created installations within two of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s famous installations, the Barcelona Pavilion and the Farnsworth House.

To create the works, they collaborated with Chicago-based architect Iker Gil of MAS Studio and Barcelona-based sound designer Oriol Tarragó who was awarded Best European Sound Designer title in 2018 by European Film Academy.

In February, Geometry of Light took place at the German Pavilion in Barcelona, presented as s part of the Fundació Mies van der Rohe’s ongoing program of artistic interventions, and corresponding with the LLUM BCN Festival and the Santa Eulàlia Festival.

Fundació Mies van der Rohe was created in 1983 by the City Council of Barcelona with the initial goal of rebuilding the German Pavilion designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe with Lilly Reich for the International Exhibition of Barcelona in 1929.

The program of artistic interventions with architects and artists began in 1999 with Jeff Wall and has continued with Enric Miralles, Dennis Adams, Antoni Muntadas, Iñaki Bonillas, SANAA Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa, Ai Weiwei, Andrés Jaque, Anna & Eugeni Bach, and Domènec among others.

Lufwerk’s installation focused on the gridded plan of the pavilion, animating and highlighting the architecture and altering the composition of the pavilion. To emphasize the projected light and to create an immersive experience, Oriol Tarragó custom-designed sound piece for the installation.

In October, coinciding with the currently ongoing third edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, the second edition of Geometry of Light was presented at Mies van der Rohe’s iconic Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois.

Luftwerk has also created temporary works at Chicago’s AT&T Plaza in Millennium Park that is famous for Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate, and at Garfield Park Conservatory, one of the largest greenhouse conservatories in the United States.

In addition to the two installations with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s buildings, Luftwerk has created r installations within architectural works by Renzo Piano and Frank Lloyd Wright. Tuija Seipell.

The post Geometry of Light, Barcelona Pavilion and Farnsworth House appeared first on The Cool Hunter Journal.

For those not familiar with our store or past pop-up spaces, imagine a retail-gallery hybrid, a place where you might not necessarily need to buy anything from but need to immerse yourself in for the sensory experience anyway. What started as an experiment in 2014 off the back of one of our featured events has now been a fixture in the Melbourne retail scene for 4 years with a commitment to keep going so long as it remains interesting to both our customers and ourselves.

Meticulously curated by The Cool Hunter team, everything in-store is for sale; art, lights, books, gourmet foods, fashion accessories and so on. Guided by the principle of needing to keep everything fresh and exclusive, we strive to change our selection regularly so that visiting our store is an interesting experience every time and stocked with goods that can’t be found anywhere else.

We get it, as shopping has become more and more monotonous, with mind-numbing sameness across airports, high streets, shopping centres and brands, there seems little point in getting excited about walking into any store. So we know we’ve set the bar high.

But we also know that the sameness is the result of brands, stores and managers choosing to be followers rather than leaders. It is so much easier to produce and sell products in the same colours, styles, and materials as everybody else. They all go to the same trade shows, same fashion shows, same predictable sources – so is it any wonder that the result is dull and boring?

Our approach is different, sometimes risky, and far more time-consuming but we’re trying to un-bore ourselves here, too. We hope that as a result, we will be able to offer our guests a worthwhile experience in return.

The Cool Hunter Store
Shop 3, 274 Conventry St
South Melbourne

Hours
Monday to Friday – 10:00am – 5:00pm
Saturday – 10:00am – 5:00pm
Sunday – 11:00am – 4:00pm

shop.thecoolhunter.net
orders@thecoolhunter.net
P: 1300 739 661

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In this ‘Villa Series’ commissioned exclusively for The Cool Hunter, digital artist Massimo Colonna draws inspiration from the architectural styles of the Italian peninsular through the ages as he reimagines his successful ‘Pool Series’ from early 2019. ‘The Villa’ collection of digital pieces again features the pool as the ultimate symbol of luxury, wealth and status, however this time they are auxiliary embellishments set against the impressive backdrop of grand architectural follies.

These imagined structures, with their repeated colonnades, arches, and statuary niches, reference the architectural motifs of the classical and renaissance eras but do so with a distinctly modern interpretation in their simplicity of form, symmetry and colour palette. Softly illuminated and set in a serene landscape of gently rolling green and fallow fields, each piece strives to achieve the Palladian-like ideal of calm self-assuredness with their harmonious proportions.

Prints available exclusively from our online store 

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